It's over for actors - an interview with the Dor Brothers

Israeli creator behind viral deepfake films talks brain-heroin machines and the death of cinema.

‘Maybe the tsunami of digitalism will bring us back to being more human again,’ Yonatan Dor, creative force behind the astonishing Dor Brothers AI videos, tells me. ‘We're humans, and we connect to humans, and we connect to human art. So maybe you'll have incredible AI actors – but already we have incredible AI chess players and still we prefer watching Magnus Carlson playing, even though we know AI will beat him a thousand out of a thousand times.’

27 year-old Dor, who is Israeli, came to using AI video technology almost by accident in early 2022 after trying to make 3D music videos. In recent weeks his wildly dystopian and comedic creations – which typically portray world leaders and tech overlords as degenerate criminals or highlight the idiocies of modern culture – have repeatedly lit up the internet. Joe Rogan has hailed the work as ‘incredible’ and Lex Friedman while in conversation with Google CEO Sundar Pichai recently said the films push the boundaries of what’s socially acceptable, existing at the very ‘edge of the Overton Window.’

Dor acknowledges he is working at the frontier of a new form of media, but claims to be mindful of the responsibility to use the technology for good. He says his videos showcase what is now possible ‘in a very obviously satirical way, but also in a very realistic and convincing way,’ in order that society can become accustomed to AI videos. This is better, he suggests, than ‘letting somebody else maliciously make a president appear to say something that causes a nuclear war.’

It won’t be long, Dor says, before screen actors are a thing of the past. He points out AI tools are being developed with such exponential rapidity – ‘wizardry’ – that within five years the tech will be able easily to train on existing footage of actors and then adapt it to any role. Directing AI talent, he believes, will be as simple as typing the prompt: ‘I want you to be this actor, but in this role, with this emotion, with this vibe, with this mindset.’ He says: ‘It will then act extremely well with that personality, but with it’s own twist on that actor's mindset and emotion.’

What about the implications for pornography? Already, society has had a foretaste of what is coming. The obscene artificial images of the singer Taylor Swift that appeared online in 2024 caused global outcry. Dor acknowledges AI and porn are natural bedfellows – ‘it wouldn't surprise me that porn is something that pushes the technology forward’ – but he seems more concerned by the manner in which the technology will soon be able to satiate all human desires, not merely the erotic.

He talks about the creation of AI ‘brain heroin machines’ and says: ‘It's the scariest aspect, because we're talking about satisfying a person's need entirely, which is beyond porn and romance. It's also entertainment… That's the biggest fear. We know AI is going to a place where it will perfectly entertain and indulge us in every need we have. How do we avoid a future where we just sit and plug into that thing and stay inside of it 24/7?’

Dor says he switches off the YouTube function that would enable him to monetise his videos, many of which are watched by tens of millions of people. The decision, which he estimates costs him a half a million euros annually, is largely artistic: ‘We want to bring back that mentality of making something cool, making something with spirit, making something with a personality – and not always chasing money.’

More pragmatically, he adds he’s less likely to be sued for creating satirical content if he’s not profiting from it. Instead, he makes an income by using the AI tech to create advertising for brands or to make pop videos for the likes of Snoop Dogg.

Dor’s scepticism of corporations extends to politics. He says he actively disengages from political conversations on the basis he does not find them interesting. Rather, he says he is fascinated by the manner in which human beings increasingly believe we have separated ourselves from the less civilised aspects of our nature. This is the theme he claims he is primarily exploring in his films. ‘People used to believe in mystical owls that whispered divine words into our ears, but we completely depressed it and became very clinical and hygienic with our thoughts. It's nice to remind people we’re still very primal and instinctive and tribal,’ he says.

Even though he is clearly having so much fun with it, like the rest of us Dor sounds both excited and frightened by the sudden and growing enormity of artificial intelligence. He speaks enthusiastically about the effect it will have on the film-making industry by enabling artists to take risks and circumvent executives who are concerned only with safe-guarding return on investment: ‘I think there's a coming golden age of cinema, because so many individual creators with fantastic ideas will be empowered and will be able to make high quality cinema again without executives saying what they can and can't do.’

He adds AI ultimately is only a tool and using it well to make stories come to life will always require talent. ‘The same directors who were good before will remain good, with it or without it,’ he says.

An optimist by nature, Dor admits he frets about the manner in which nations – most obviously America and China – are competing for AI superiority within an environment lacking adequate regulation. He says: ‘I think about AI as a different species that is a million times more intelligent… One of the most important things we should look out for is the people developing it. We don't want a situation where people are racing to the top and by doing so destroying everything behind them.’

He believes the need for an international United Nations-style regulatory body for AI is more pressing even than it is for nuclear weapons. ‘We know nuclear is dangerous, and we know that if somebody pulls a trigger we’re doomed – but we know that we have the control of pulling the trigger. With AI, we don't really know that, and that makes it an even bigger threat,’ he says.

Dor says in just a day or two he can make a highly sophisticated and slick AI film that will be watched by millions of people. Unsurprisingly, he is deeply conscious of the power of the new technology. He says he is a spiritual person: ‘I believe there's something beyond the human. I think the humility that comes from that thought process is really important, because once you don't have a God, maybe you start thinking you are one, and that's where problems arise.’